[HN Gopher] Laptops adorned with creative stickers
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       Laptops adorned with creative stickers
        
       Author : z303
       Score  : 63 points
       Date   : 2025-11-02 11:58 UTC (9 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (stickertop.art)
 (TXT) w3m dump (stickertop.art)
        
       | crtasm wrote:
       | I love this. Will submit a few of mine soon.
        
       | aaaja wrote:
       | What a mess. Most of these are cringe and lack aesthetic sense.
        
         | teejmya wrote:
         | Good thing they're not yours, then
        
         | navbaker wrote:
         | Can you point us to a resource that would layout guidelines for
         | placing laptop stickers in an aesthetically pleasing manner?
        
           | wiseowise wrote:
           | apple.com
        
         | elzbardico wrote:
         | I absolutely hate stickers too. You're not alone.
        
       | bitbasher wrote:
       | I get the feeling about 90% of those laptops belong to either
       | cyber security folks or rust developers. Just a gut feeling.
        
         | twic wrote:
         | I always associated these battle-jacketed MacBooks with Ruby
         | developers. But Ruby developers were the Rust developers of
         | their day.
        
       | ge96 wrote:
       | It's funny awkward when you get fired and your laptop is covered
       | in stickers
       | 
       | I'll submit mine later today to this comment, I'm a poser lol eg.
       | I don't daily drive Rust but I like the crab and the Gopher
       | 
       | Kinkpad lol that's good
        
         | layman51 wrote:
         | That work-related aspect is what I was thinking about too. I'm
         | not sure what it looks like in various workplaces, but I'm
         | always a bit curious around the policies they might have around
         | putting lots of them on employer-owned laptops. I think in
         | tough times when maybe it's not easy to replace hardware, it
         | can be annoying for an IT person to receive some where they
         | have to peel them off and use Goo Gone on them.
        
           | ge96 wrote:
           | I think of it as optimism/a power move, I'm here for the long
           | run.
        
         | viraptor wrote:
         | You can heat most of them and take off easily. If the IT
         | transfers laptops to other people, they surely have a system
         | for cleaning already.
        
       | b_e_n_t_o_n wrote:
       | This makes me wanna go buy some stickers...
        
       | weinzierl wrote:
       | There used to be a startup that sold ads on laptops. You got sent
       | a sticker, had to put it on your laptop and take photos with the
       | laptop and varying sets of people in them to get paid. Wonder
       | what happened to them.
        
       | xoxxala wrote:
       | I really like the massive Beagle Bros Software sticker. Someone
       | has good taste.
        
         | jszymborski wrote:
         | Likewise, that one really stood out!
        
       | olirex99 wrote:
       | Unfortunately, my company asked me to remove the stickers, as
       | they don't reflect the company...
        
         | mc32 wrote:
         | You can put them on your car, bike or rucksack
        
         | Etheryte wrote:
         | The company I work at has a strict no stickers policy, that's
         | why each and every one of my laptops is covered in them.
        
       | dinkleberg wrote:
       | Wow most of these are quite the contrast to what I used to see
       | back in the day. At least in my circles it was just a collection
       | of the technologies you've learned and enjoy. These are more like
       | bumper stickers on the back of car. To each their own I suppose.
        
         | shagie wrote:
         | When I was going to conferences, my laptop stickers were a
         | public display of "these are technologies that I use and you
         | can strike up a conversation with me about them." To an extent,
         | a resume that you can glance at from across the room.
         | 
         | It's a bit of a statement for what you're trying to communicate
         | with that lid - professional experience, political statements,
         | personal "this is neat"...
         | 
         | And part of this is a _for me_ the lid of the laptop is
         | something that I 'd need to be able to be comfortable with
         | displaying in front of a CxO without worry about if they may be
         | offended or not (though perl might be offensive to some).
        
           | viraptor wrote:
           | > though perl might be offensive to some
           | 
           | Now I'm tempted to make a set of: Perl, COBOL, Java Beans,
           | Java EE, ActiveX, Silverlight, VB.Net, ActiveDirectory,
           | Kerberos, ...
        
           | SchemaLoad wrote:
           | I've got stickers on my laptops. None of them are political,
           | but I've got various indie fashion brands, music related,
           | furry stickers, etc. If someone managed to be offended by
           | them that's more their problem than mine. I can go work
           | anywhere and have enough savings that it would be no
           | inconvenience to me. I wouldn't want to work with someone who
           | couldn't handle some trivial self expression on the back of a
           | laptop.
           | 
           | So far no one has ever been offended by this though. HN is
           | far more sensitive than the average CTO.
        
       | cringemaester wrote:
       | This is the equivalent of lowered Honda civics with ultra
       | cambered wheels, ground lighting, and farty mufflers. Cringe in
       | 2005. Cringe today.
        
         | SiempreViernes wrote:
         | The above is a self-referencing comment.
        
         | wiseowise wrote:
         | Civics are more based, though.
        
         | noisem4ker wrote:
         | At least those cars exhibited some kind of aesthetic merit,
         | albeit of opinable taste. Most of these pileups of stickers are
         | just an incoherent mishmash of corporate trademarks and
         | political orientation signals. They only share the attention
         | grabbing attitude.
         | 
         | I expected better from the title.
        
       | joshdavham wrote:
       | This was super fun to browse!
       | 
       | I am a bit curious about the amount of politically progressive
       | stickers however. Like, is sticker-ing your laptop just more of a
       | 'progressive' thing to do? Do political conservatives not sticker
       | their laptops in the same way that they generally do with their
       | bumper stickers?
        
         | SchemaLoad wrote:
         | I think there's just a link between sticking stickers on things
         | and being somewhat expressive, artistic, willing to stand out.
         | While leaving the laptop blank is more likely someone more dry,
         | reserved, etc. There's also a link between stickers and
         | graffiti culture which I wouldn't describe as progressive but
         | more just unconventional/rebellious.
        
         | viraptor wrote:
         | I've never seen a conservative sticker on a laptop before. Then
         | again, stickers, tags, etc. are more of an anti establishment
         | thing. Those things don't mesh well with conservative views.
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | There are laptops with a display on the outside to display
       | stickers.[1]
       | 
       | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrINRHeNDQA
        
       | sien wrote:
       | It's interesting that these are labelled 'creative'. They all
       | look the same. They all reflect similar taste. Quite a bit of
       | politics, but is there a single right wing sticker? I couldn't
       | find one.
       | 
       | I was at SIGGRAPH many years ago in a line behind some artists.
       | They were talking about how all the engineers dressed the same.
       | This is true. But was also true was that you easily tell the
       | artists as well, they all dressed carefully and differently,
       | within the bounds of their style and were just as easily
       | distinguished.
        
       | nntwozz wrote:
       | Ha, what a throwback!
       | 
       | I remember this one with the Intel SSD sticker:
       | 
       | https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-320-ssd-300-gb/imag...
       | 
       | https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_6571.JPEG
       | 
       | "The Intel SSD 320 is the much anticipated follow-up to the Intel
       | X25-M, easily the most popular consumer SSD to date."
       | 
       | https://www.storagereview.com/review/intel-ssd-320-review-30...
       | 
       | Time flies, such a nice upgrade back in the day; now we take
       | these things for granted.
       | 
       | [EDIT]
       | 
       | I just saw the fon.com sticker too... nostalgia hits hard.
       | 
       | I used that on a vacation in Madrid back when Starbucks was
       | filled with people on their laptops, mostly white MacBooks.
        
       | braden-lk wrote:
       | These comments are rough. Some weird hostility to self-expression
       | in here.
       | 
       | "Back in my day, laptops were about TECHNOLOGY! Where's the
       | conservative stickers!?" Ok, put some "conservative stickers" on
       | your laptop and submit a pic to the site-- no one's stopping you.
       | 
       | I was born in early 90s; all laptops in my memory have weird,
       | silly stickers on them.
        
       | klez wrote:
       | Looks like many people here in the comments don't hang out at
       | hacking events that are not purely tech-focused. In European
       | hacker camps these kinds of stickers are the norm, especially the
       | political ones that, because of the very nature of those camps,
       | lean heavily progressive if not anti-capitalist/anarchist.
        
       | Findecanor wrote:
       | The only one I liked is the HAL sticker.
       | 
       | Hmm... Does the current crop of Apple laptops have a glowing
       | Apple logo? ... and is there a HAL sticker that has a red lens in
       | the middle that would glow red if I put it over the Apple logo?
        
       | d_silin wrote:
       | I think it is a wonderful pop-art exhibit!
        
       | reaperducer wrote:
       | Where do people buy laptop stickers these days? My wife got a new
       | computer a few months and couldn't find anything cute and
       | tasteful. Everything was brands and anger. The places she used to
       | use are gone, and Amazon proved useless.
        
         | viraptor wrote:
         | Etsy has some, but you can also print your own for not much.
        
       | ninetyninenine wrote:
       | Like covering a Lamborghini with cheap bumper stickers.
        
         | viraptor wrote:
         | It's like people want to show what they care about rather than
         | how much they spent on the hardware... There may be a reason.
        
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       (page generated 2025-11-11 23:00 UTC)